Internet accessibility legislation cleared the House Commerce Committee by a unanimous voice vote Wednesday. The committee reported the bill (HR-3101) to the full House with amendments addressing industry concerns, expanding video description requirements, and establishing an annual $10 million fund to subsidize equipment for the deaf-blind. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., reaffirmed he wants to see the bills on the House and Senate floors next week in time for the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Senate Commerce Committee passed its own version of the bill (S-3304) last week (CD July 16 p5).

Draft FCC rulemakings propose changing how DBS providers must deal with carriage of TV stations to subscribers who live in a different market and in some cases wouldn’t be able to watch the station over-the-air by antenna, agency officials said. They said the two drafts respond to this year’s Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) and are expected to be approved by FCC members soon, perhaps this week, and then publicly released for comment. Quick turnaround of the items which circulated Friday is likely because the agency must take final action on distant signal carriage and DBS subscriber signal measurement, subjects of the pending items, by Nov. 23 under STELA, agency officials said.

Telcos and consumer advocates are squaring off in California over SB-1375, a “warm line” 911 emergency service bill. Passed 35-0 by the State Senate June 1, the measure was approved 14-0 by the Assembly Policy Committee June 28. When the Legislature reconvenes Aug. 4, the Assembly Appropriations Committee will take up the bill. Sponsored by Sen. Curren Price (D), the bill proposes to update a 1995 mandate that carriers give all landlines permanent access to 911 services even if no account exists or service has been cut off for non-payment. California and other states imposed the requirement at a time when customers might lose access to 911 between shutting down and restarting service -- a circumstance revolutionized by deregulation and alternative technology.

The FCC concludes in its sixth broadband deployment report that 14-24 million Americans still can’t get high-speed access, and the immediate prospect for deployment to the unserved Americans is “bleak.” As expected (CD July 19 p1), commission Republicans Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker issued vigorous dissents from the report and its finding that the FCC can’t conclude that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a “reasonable and timely” manner.

Washington, New York, Boston, San Antonio and other local governments that received FCC waivers to build wireless networks using 700 MHz spectrum provided the commission with updates on their efforts. In May, the agency approved 21 waiver requests on file at the commission. Meanwhile, industry commenters offered advice to the FCC on rules for a 700 MHz network that would ensure nationwide interoperability, addressing critical issues including roaming and priority access.

The Office of Management and Budget’s IT Dashboard needs more frequent updates and standardized milestones before it can accurately measure the federal government’s IT investments, the GAO said in a report Tuesday. OMB began the IT Dashboard website in June 2009 to improve the accountability of federal IT spending, expected to total $79 billion in FY 2011, said GAO. It’s supposed to measure near-real-time performance of IT investments made by federal agencies, but falls short, the study found.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski continues to be alarmed by the gap in home broadband access between whites and minorities and said the agency is taking several steps to address that issue and enhance opportunities for people of color and small businesses seeking to enter media and telecom. With fast Internet service at home for 59 percent of African-Americans, 49 percent of Hispanics and probably around 10 percent for Native Americans, “you already know the numbers,” he told a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council conference Tuesday. “The digital divide is seriously troubling. More troubling now than in the past, because the costs of digital exclusion are rising.”

Republican senators seeking to limit FCC power over the Internet plan to introduce Wednesday legislation designed to stop the FCC from applying common carrier regulations to broadband, said telecom industry officials. Under the Freedom for Consumer Choice (FCC) Act, the commission couldn’t regulate unless it first showed harm to consumers from a lack of competition and it weighed the possible costs of action against the benefits. Passing the legislation is a long shot in the current political climate, telecom industry analysts said.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) will build and run a 4G network for Harbinger Capital Partners and its SkyTerra unit, under an eight-year, $7 billion agreement, the companies said Tuesday. The new business, called LightSquared, said it will offer wholesale terrestrial-only, satellite-only and combined satellite-terrestrial services starting in the second half of 2011. The agreement is a major step toward using largely undeveloped spectrum allocated for satellite companies at the terrestrial level, and it could mean an important new customer for tower owners, analysts said. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski lauded the agreement as an industry endorsement of the commission’s efforts on broadband spectrum.

The FCC should look at whether prices are competitive as it examines special access rates, said William Taylor of NERA Economic Consulting at a commission workshop Monday. Economists Taylor and Dennis Carlton of Compass Lexecon represented the incumbent local exchange carrier perspective, while Bridger Mitchell of Charles River Associates and Lee Selwyn of Economics and Technology, Inc., represented the NoChokePoints Coalition viewpoint.